The numbers speak for themselves. While apprenticeship numbers are sliding in most sectors of the print industry, and have been for quite some years, it’s in the bindery that the lack of young trainees is most evident. That drought of expertise has a direct impact on every specialist bindery in the country – as well as many print businesses. While bindery technology was always going to become automated, the skills gap means that machinery is stepping in to take over what was always a manual part of the workflow. Efficiency and productivity are now achieved as much by technology as skill.
But can machines every truly replace the skilled operator?
Many printers with in-house binderies circumvent the lack of skilled labour by shifting workers around and arranging some on-the-spot training to build a level of experience in the business. For specialist binderies and finishing houses, and printers with sophisticated finishing facilities, it’s not quite so straightforward.
Despite the consolidation of the industry in the past few years, experienced (and qualified) bindery tradespeople are not readily available. This scarcity will only get worse for the foreseeable future, according to the directors of two of the country’s leading specialist binderies.
Wayne Eastaugh, managing director of Marvel Bookbinding in Melbourne, says attracting skilled workers is problematic – not just in locating them, but keeping them.
“We definitely find it hard to find people with the right skills,” he tells ProPrint. “There is a definite shortage of skilled staff. You can go into the open marketplace, where there is a number of closures and some rationalisation going on in the industry, but predom-inantly we embark on training them for ourselves. We have put on apprentices for the past three years.
“Sometimes you can get the people, but it’s more difficult to hold onto them and hold their interest. Before we embark on the apprenticeship process, we usually employ them for about a year and make sure it’s something they see their future in. Otherwise you’re throwing a lot of time and costs into something that’s not going to give you any benefit in the long term. With everybody running so lean these days, a better training system would be more friendly to the busier times of the year, or done on site.”
Skills scarcity
Rob Dunnett, chief executive of The Bindery in Melbourne, tells the same story. He points out that skilled workers are scarce, but then developing those skills has its own hurdles.
“There is most definitely a skills shortage. As an example, of the last 12 employees we’ve had here, nine have been on 457 visas. We have to import the skilled labour, and it breaks my heart,” he said.
“We want more apprentices, but we really struggle. The first hurdle is to attract them, especially young apprentices of 16 to 18, but we just can’t get them.
“Secondly, when we’ve actually got them, there’s a training issue. Say I’ve found four great young kids, and give them apprenticeships – then all four have to go to trade school at exactly the same time. That presents a real problem to us in running the business, especially at busy times. I can’t just allow four employees to go to trade school for two weeks at a time. It’s too prohibitive.
“I’d love nothing more than to put on four apprentices every year,” he adds.
It’s a fact that the finishing department holds little appeal for most young people. Despite its transformation in the past decade to one of high technology, other careers burn brighter.
“It’s difficult to attract young people to print. The bindery is labour-intensive, and if their preference is not to go down the physical labour route then you haven’t got a hope of attracting them,” says Dunnett.
Ian Walz, national manager of learning and development at the Printing Industries Association of Australia (PIAA), places some of the blame on employers them-selves for not maintaining a level of trade qualifications for employees in the past.
“The range of skills used in the converting, binding and finishing sector is quite wide and varied. They range from the basics of guillotining, embossing, hand fastening, laminating, sewing to stitching and the use of adhesives. They include the operations of setting up, producing, through to skills involved in controlling and managing production of print finishing.
“The skill gaps in the process are minimal. The problem is that in recent years, employers have placed lesser value on a full trade qualification through an apprenticeship or traineeship, and workers in this field are only provided the necessary skills to undertake a specific task.”
Advances in finishing technology over the past decade have addressed some of the skills gaps in binderies. Many manual and repetitive tasks are automated and computerised: equipment manufacturers have responded to the needs of print business owners to reduce their reliance on human skills for things such as set-ups. This has made it easier to lower the overheads by reducing the number of staff needed to run an efficient bindery.
For binderies those savings in time and money are welcome, but the avalanche of automation in the last decade can be a double-edged sword.
Man versus machine
Livio Barbagallo, managing director of Muller Martini Australia, agrees there is now less reliance on skills as machines take on greater roles. He points out this has gone hand in hand with a reluctance among many businesses to invest in training for the longer term.
“The main issue is the availability of the necessary skills to operate bindery equipment efficiently,” he said. “With the increase in automation levels, fewer and fewer skilled bindery personnel have been required and consequently, many former bindery personnel have moved on to other industries. The consequence is that today our customers have to choose from a far smaller pool of candidates when it comes to employing new bindery personnel.
“And at the same time, there are only a few companies investing in training and development of younger people to close those gaps. In addition, the bindery segment of the printing industry isn’t selling itself too well to younger people, and consequently there is also a lack of quantity when it comes to development of new skills,” says Barbagallo.
Rayne Simpson, general manager, print finishing, at Ferrostaal Australia, has observed the changes in the bindery sector for many years. He agrees that skilled bindery workers are disappearing, pushing printing companies with internal binderies to broaden their employees’ abilities to handle bindery equipment, and in the process enhancing their overall view of the print process.
“Yes, we can see a skills gap in the bindery business. For many years, we have listened to the trade discuss their difficulties employing apprentices as bindery operators. This has led to knowledge gaps and a skills shortage.
“More and more, we see increased automation and electronic set-up, which enables operators with broad print knowledge to operate a wider set of print and finishing machinery. However, learning to operate equipment is only a small part; having the knowledge or know-how in the end-to-end manufacture of the document is where experience and skills are important.”
Moving on
Heidelberg Australia & New Zealand’s Brian Evans concedes that skill levels in the bindery are waning, and old hands are moving on.
“The skill level has dropped in finishing, and this is due to older, more experienced operators retiring or leaving the trade. Customers are continually looking for more automation and ease of operation due to the fact that the skill level is not there any more. This works fine, but operators still need to know the basics of machine operations and handling of paper conditions, and how to do more problem solving.”
There’s no doubt that the finishing sector had to radically overhaul its performance to match the momentum of improvements in press technology. So automated binderies with fewer staff can now sometimes handle the output of automated pressrooms, but are frequently cited as a production bottleneck when the pressure is on.
Muller Martini’s Barbagallo says that while productivity is up in the bindery, performance is often slowed by inexperience rather than technology.
“It definitely has an impact on equipment decisions and is a top priority topic before investment decisions are made. The main disadvantage from a supplier’s perspective, however, is the performance the machines will achieve if there is a lack of skills needed for a particular piece of equipment.”
Ferrostaal’s Simpson suggests that new bindery technology needn’t be seen as a replacement for skills, but instead should redirect skills utilisation.
“Increased automation has resulted in a more generalised approach to the workforce in the print room,” he said.
“Automation is providing a learning pathway to a broader set of skills in print production. For example, in recent installations we have seen immediate productivity gains when MBO folding machines or Osako saddlestitchers are run inline with a Palamides automatic banding system. Placed after a saddlestitcher or folding machine, printed products are folded or bound, pressed, counted and banded in neat bundles at very high speeds with one operator, removing many manual labour tasks.”
Both Wayne Eastaugh and Rob Dunnett agree that automation provides benefits in some production areas, and can boost final product quality at the same time. But it isn’t a cure-all.
“Equipment automation certainly does bring far better quality levels than, say, 20 years ago,” says Eastaugh.
“There’s greater precision in the machinery, and some glues have improved out of sight. There have been improvements in a lot of areas, and there’s better understanding from manufacturers of what the market needs. So overall I think quality is a lot better than it was 20 years ago.”
Dunnett says: “Automation has its moments, but it’s not all good. In some areas, like photobooks for instance, it’s not a quality product from a binding perspective. It’s cheap and nasty, made to suit a market.
“We look for automation in certain areas though. It helps cut some labour costs, and gives faster makereadies and speed to market. It can deliver some better quality products, and assists with the lack of skills in the marketplace. But to be able to run some of our equipment you need to be a skilled tradesman, and to know the difference between a good book and a bad book.”
Eastaugh points to another skill that is disappearing – an understanding of the care and maintenance of expensive bindery equipment.
“All areas of the bindery need high-end skills so you get a high-quality job off the end of the process, but you need a highly skilled person to look after the equipment you invested many hundreds of thousands in, and in the case of perfect binders, sometimes even millions. If you put on someone who’s not 100% up to it, they can do significant damage to your equipment and create massive problems.”
Vendors as teachers
Suppliers usually give training as equipment is installed, but does this adequately replace traditional apprenticeships?
“Vendors could provide a more formalised, certified style of training to upskill existing staff to use newer, more complex equipment. The main benefit would be a more diversified skill set for concurrent work related tasks,” says Simpson.
Barbagallo adds: “With thorough training, which is periodically repeated to keep or improve the level of knowledge, a high level of efficiency can be achieved.
“Customers who have worked with us in training programmes consistently outperform competitors by achieving higher machine output figures. All training programmes are tailored to each customer’s needs. By working in a close partnership we get to know the customer and their business, and therefore we can identify accurately where to focus.”
According to Evans: “Heidelberg can offer onsite training, and also training in our own showroom. It seems a lot of focus now in training programmes is on management skills and supervisor skills. More skills are required not only for manual machines but also automated products. Automation is the way of the future and the demand will continue to grow. The focus right now is about trying to reduce makeready times and using the automation to do this.”
Printing Industries’ Ian Walz sees vendor training as valuable, but not a long-term solution to the lack of industry skills.
“Machinery vendors will tend to offer specific training to their particular brand of machinery, which often suits the employer for a certain operation to be undertaken, but limits the employee’s understanding of other processes in the binding and finishing trade,” he says.
“They in turn are not able to transfer their limited knowledge to a new work environment without further skill development.”
Recruiter’s view: seeking answers
Recruitment agencies are ideally placed to track the state of skills. Fred Fleury, sales manager of printing industry agency Logical Recruitment Solutions, says that the talk of a skills shortage in the bindery are overcooked.
“I guess it is a preconceived idea that there is a shortage of candidates for the bindery, however, we have not experienced it.”
While he concedes that there are a handful of specific skills gaps – Bobst operators, for instance – largely there is a glut of jobseekers on the market. To back this up, he says that Logical has a database of 2,500 people looking for placements in the bindery, at least 1200 of whom are out of work and actively looking for a job.
The preconception about the skills gap is hastened by a number of things, says Fleury. For one, he says employers who go it alone when recruiting are often disheartened by the experience. As someone working in the field, it’s no surprise that Fleury would talk up the merits of using an agency, but he makes a convincing argument.
“They think you just put an ad up on Seek and that’s it. But they only find the people who are looking for a job that week. In two weeks, [the right candidate] won’t find you, whereas a recruiter has up to 10 years of personnel at their fingertips.”
He adds that employers who turn to more general recruitment agencies might also be under-whelmed with the results. “When you come through us, Stockdale or James Cryer, we understand the industry and what printers look for in a candidate.”
But beyond talking up the recruitment game, Fleury has other insights into the skills issue in the bindery. In particular, employers in today’s market are only interested in gold medal candidates. Nothing less will do.
“The main thing across the board we found is that employers in general are time poor, which means they are not putting much emphasis on training. So when they hire someone they want someone who ticks all the boxes, not six out of 10. If [the candidate] is not 100% fit, they won’t take them on.”
And of course, money comes into it. “Everyone wants a ‘superfast’ guillotine operator, or stitcher operator or folder operator who is between 28 and 40. They also want someone who is willing to be paid what people use to be paid in the ’80s.”
The lack of training and downward pressure on wages creates a vicious cycle. The only way workers can get further skills or a pay rise is to jump ship to another printer or trade binder. Fleury hears this firsthand from production managers all over the country. “They always say we would like to pay more but management won’t let us. Then they complain about a high staff turnover.”
Of course, somewhere, a printing company benefits from this staff churn by picking up a new recruit. The real problem is the beckon of other sectors. “People doing $20 an hour in the printing industry could get $25 an hour on a forklift,” says Fleury.
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